The Rogue Parent

Teach Your Kids About Life, Build a Fire

As a follow up to my post on the Five Dangerous Things for Kids to Do here’s just a handful of things your kids (and you) can learn from an evening under the stars building a campfire.  You can wrap up just about everything a fire can teach you in the motto of the Boy Scouts of America, “Be Prepared.”  From respect to imagination, a fire is a great tool to teach your kids to be prepared.

For starters, my daughter is too young for the campfire and is now content to just watch the glowing embers.  So this is more about my experiences and what I learned from the ultimate caveman tool, fire.

Lesson #1: Plan Ahead

This is the lesson that jumps out right at you when building a fire.  You can’t start a fire, maintain a fire or even sit around a fire without a little forethought.  For instance, when you begin to build a fire, you start by scoping out a clear/safe location and collecting all the wood you’ll need.  When you don’t plan ahead, you find yourself stumbling through the forest in the middle of the night trying to find firewood to keep the blaze alive.

The same is true with life.  If you don’t plan ahead, you’ll find your constantly battling to keep your fire alive while the planners around you seem to have it so easy with a nice big pile of firewood ready to go.

Lesson #2: Pay Attention

Nothing says, “Hey pay attention to me!” like a hot coal underfoot.  I learned the importance of paying attention when sitting around a fire.  I was sharpening a stick with a Swiss army knife, recently given to me by my grandfather, and didn’t realize that I had turned the knife the wrong way and pushed the dull side of the blade into the stick.  Well anyone who has ever owned a Swiss army knife knows that if you push the dull side, the knife folds closed… too bad my knuckle was in the way.  Lesson learned loud and clear with a little scar to remind me.

In my job and life, it’s amazing how important it is to pay attention to the details.  From spelling, to remembering a name to understanding that a meeting starts at 10:00 and not 10:05; paying attention is the key to success.

Lesson #3: Give Respect

‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ are great ways to show respect, but that’s not the respect to which I’m referring.  The kind of respect you learn from a fire is not verbal, it’s physical and spiritual.  If you’ve ever been around a fire that got a little out of control, you know this kind of respect.  It’s the kind that puts a pit in your stomach and immediately teaches you a life-long lesson.

I learned this lesson when I thought it would be cool to throw a big log on a fire. Unfortunately I was too young to understand Newton’s Third Law of Motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  The reaction in this case was a shower of sparks that lit the grass nearby ablaze.  Lucky with a few quick stamps of my feet, the situation was back under control.  A lesson was learned that night about respect for things bigger than you.  Just like when driving a car, playing in a tree or being in a relationship; it’s all easy when it’s under control.  Though as soon as you stop giving something the respect needed it get’s out of control and sometimes you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

Lesson #4: Stop and Smell the Roses

This is a great lesson to learn and once you’ve prepared to build a fire, paid attention and given respect you have time to sit back, look at the stars and smell the roses.  I can’t express enough what I took from those fireside chats with my dad, siblings and friends.  When all you have is the quiet crackling of a fire, friends and time you get to a place where you see life a little more clear.  Learning how to stop and smell the roses is one lesson a fire can teach and video games or the TV can’t.

Lesson #5: Finish What You Start

With a fire, as in life, you make sure you finish what you start.  A fire makes this life lesson very easy, if you just get up and walk away from a fire, you’re going to have some big trouble.  The life lesson of cleaning up and leaving things the way you found them becomes very clear and obvious when the consequence is an uncontrolled fire.  That same lesson can be applied to all aspects of a child’s life; from how to treat others to cleaning their room.

There’s no doubt that hundreds of other lessons can be learned around the campfire, far too many for one post.  Share your stories of what you’ve learned from the ultimate caveman too, fire, right here.